The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (7 page)

The prince’s sympathies were entirely with his young friends. In order to try to reduce the outrage, he himself suggested that he should hold a tournament at Wark, but the king would have none of it. The king had learnt of a secret compact between the prince and Gaveston which went far beyond the desertion of a few knights. It turned out that they were sworn together as brothers-in-arms: that they would fight together as brothers and protect each other against all other men, sharing all their possessions!
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It was outrageous. Although an admiration for Gaveston’s excellent knightly qualities was understandable, a liaison which threatened to share the government of the realm with a provincial knight was unthinkable.

Roger Mortimer had no objection to the prince having a brother-in-arms, and no problem with the chosen man being Gaveston. It was a knightly and courtly thing to do, and besides, Roger liked Piers Gaveston, and respected his skills in the tournament. But nothing could have prepared him and the other lords for the king’s next quarrel with his son. The occasion was a request by the prince. Having decided that, if Gaveston was too low-born to be his companion, he would give him one of his own counties, the prince sent the Treasurer, Walter Langton, to the king. On his knees, Langton said: ‘My lord king, I am sent on behalf of my lord the prince, your son, though as God lives, unwillingly, to seek in his name your licence to promote his knight Piers Gaveston to the rank of Count of Ponthieu.’ The king could not believe what he was hearing. To Langton he shouted back: ‘Who are you who dares to ask such things? As God lives, if not for fear of the Lord and because you said at the outset that you undertook this business unwillingly, you would not escape my hands! Now, however, I shall see what he who sent you has to say, while you wait here.’ The prince was summoned, and stood before his white-haired father. ‘On what business did you send this man?’ demanded the king. The prince stoically replied: ‘That with your consent I might give the county of Ponthieu to Sir Piers Gaveston.’ On hearing these words, spoken by the prince himself, the king flew into a rage, exclaiming, ‘You wretched son of a whore! Do you want to give away lands now? You who have never gained any? As God lives, if not for fear of breaking up the kingdom, I would never let you enjoy your inheritance!’ As he spoke the king seized hold of the prince’s head by the hair and tore handfuls of hair out, then threw the prince to the floor and kicked him repeatedly until he was exhausted.
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When the king had recovered he summoned the lords who were gathering for the parliament at Carlisle and before them declared Gaveston banished. It was a punishment upon his son more than on Gaveston, and since Gaveston’s conduct had been irreproachable he gave him a pension to be enjoyed while abroad. He also forced Gaveston and the prince both to swear an oath never to see each other again without his permission. The prince, facing the prospect of life at court without his beloved companion, travelled south with him to Dover, showering him along the way with presents of jewellery, gold and exotic clothes, including two velvet jousting suits, one in red and the other in green, with silver and pearls on the sleeves. Then he was gone.

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The prince, bereft of his ‘brother Perrot’, must have felt in the spring of 1307 that only one obstacle lay between him and his happiness: his father. Most of those now at court were younger men, and a change of monarch was long overdue. Young noblemen, bred on stories of great deeds, needed a king who offered them opportunities to match their ambitions, not a sixty-seven-year-old man obsessed with the political vicissitudes of Scotland. The king himself knew this, and knew his strength was ebbing. But with all the world against him, he would not give in. He waited in the north, ready for war. The reprisals against his treatment of Bruce’s family would not be long coming, and he wanted to be there to meet them.

Most men, after more than half a century of military service, might have been content to retire to a monastery and there end their days in quiet contemplation. Not King Edward. Driven by the furies against first the Welsh and then the Scots, he had made war an integral part of his life. It was not that he was a vicious man – although he showed moments of vindictiveness, as in his treatment of the Countess of Buchan – but he had defined his own qualities in terms of military leadership. In his own mind, if he did not carry the fight against England’s enemies, England would be at their mercy. Therefore his country needed him, he believed, and his right to rule depended on his military judgement and leadership in war.

In March 1307 the king moved to Carlisle in anticipation of the parliament he had called to take place there. Roger and his uncle, together with the rest of the English host, were summoned to attend. The Scots had apparently taken heart with the revival of another old prophecy of Merlin’s: that after the death of the Covetous King, the Scots and Welsh would unite and have everything their own way. Robert Bruce had returned to the mainland and, although his brothers Thomas and Alexander Bruce
were captured and executed on their arrival in the west of the country, Bruce himself was stronger than ever before. On 10 May he defeated Aymer de Valence at Loudon Hill, and a few days later he outwitted another English force under Ralph de Monthermer, and drove them back to Ayr Castle. Edward, by contrast, was sicker than ever, and did not appear in public. As the English army assembled at Carlisle, rumours spread that he was already dead.

No challenge, not even that of death, held any fears for the old king. When he heard that people were saying he was dead he forced himself out of his bed and once more set out towards Scotland. He did not know how much further he could go, but now the English army was with him, and thousands of men behind him. He was riding against all his enemies. On 3 July he managed two miles. Through a supreme force of will he pushed himself to go another two miles the next day. Worn out, on the next day he rested. The following day, however, he pressed on again, and made it to Burgh by Sands, with the waves crashing on the shore in the distance and the estuary between England and Scotland in sight. On 7 July he decided he would rest a little more. That afternoon, at about three o’clock, when his esquires lifted him up in his bed to take a little food, he fell back dead in their arms.

It was time for Prince Edward and his brother-in-arms to take power.

THREE

The King’s Friend

THE DEATH OF
a member of the royal family is an unsettling event even in modern times; the death of a medieval monarch was much more so. When that monarch had reigned for most people’s lifetime, and had become, for each and every one, a crucial part of how society operated, in terms of justice, law, security and religious observance, the effect was traumatic. So it was with Edward I. Most people could not remember the death of the previous king, thirty-five years earlier. Of the lords, knights and prelates who could, very few were old enough to have been at court at the time. Thus, as the country struggled to come to terms with the fact that the only king they had ever known or served was dead, they did the only thing which they were sure was right: they welcomed his son to the throne with open arms, and conferred on him all the powers of his father.

The realisation of his freedom burst on Edward like a ray of light. Immediately he recalled Gaveston from exile, and within a month the two men were again laughing together as they had done in the early days of their friendship. No more, it seemed, could old kings and proud earls challenge their relationship. And neither could they prevent Edward advancing Gaveston to the front rank of power. On 6 August 1306 at Dumfries, still a day short of a month since his father had died, he endowed Gaveston with one of the richest earldoms in the country, that of Cornwall, worth approximately £4,000 a year. The earldom had been intended for the late king’s second son, Thomas of Brotherton, but Edward disregarded his young half-brother’s interest. Even more alarming to the lords, who were just recovering from the shock of losing their old king, Edward proposed making Gaveston a member of the royal family. He planned to do this by allowing him to marry his niece, Margaret de Clare, sister of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and daughter of his own sister, Joan. For the great lords it was like seeing a servant taken up from the kitchen and sat at the king’s high table.

Gilbert de Clare, the sixteen-year-old Earl of Gloucester, was one of the few who saw no problem in the king’s raising Gaveston to high rank. He had grown up with the king and Gaveston, and understood their friendship. Roger Mortimer, who had been at court for at least the last four
years, similarly saw Gaveston’s promotion as breaking new ground for the new generation. Now twenty years old, and firmly at the heart of the new administration, Roger stood to benefit from the change of monarch. Other men, like Hugh Audley, Roger Damory and John de Charlton had no doubt that their interests lay in supporting the king. Only slightly more distant were older royal advisers, such as Bartholomew de Badlesmere, Lord Mortimer of Chirk, and the elder Hugh Despenser, men whom Edward valued for their counsel and their loyalty. For all these lords opportunities beckoned, as long as they remained on the right side of Gaveston.

This was the sticking point for many of the older men, especially those who were not friends of the prince. Remaining on the right side of Gaveston was very difficult. He was not just an entertainer, he was ambitious and manipulative too. He took full advantage of his relationship with Edward, seeking opportunities for preferment for his tenants and dependants, and wilfully controlling the lords’ access to Edward.
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The great earls saw no reason why they should play second fiddle to the wishes of a Gascon commoner, and several of them soon wished they had not been so hasty in confirming his advancement to an earldom. To them and many others it was clear that their ancient lineage and noble titles – so hard won by their ancestors – counted for little when marks of profound dignity and distinction could be showered on Gaveston, who had yet to prove himself of benefit to anyone but the king.

Roger Mortimer was firmly in the king’s camp, and as one of the king’s young knights he was enjoying his new-found association with power. With the summer of 1307 drifting past aimlessly, the campaign in Scotland was called off, and Roger accompanied the rest of the court back to Westminster. There they spent a month preparing for the burial of Edward I and the marriage of Gaveston to Margaret de Clare. The funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 22 October, fifteen weeks after the king’s death.
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After seeing his father safely into his tomb, Edward set out for Berkhamsted, the manor of his widowed stepmother, Queen Margaret, where Gaveston’s wedding was to take place.

For Edward and Gaveston and their friends, the gathering of the court was little more than an excuse to drink, feast, joust, hunt and be merry. After a stay at Berkhamsted they moved on to the manor of Kings Langley in Hertfordshire where they spent most of November. The king’s cousin Thomas of Lancaster was with them, by far the most powerful man in the country after the king, with four earldoms and a colossal income.
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The Earl of Pembroke (Aymer de Valence had recently been confirmed in succession to this earldom) and the Earl of Gloucester were also in the royal party, as well as the Mortimers. On 26 November Roger’s name
appears next to that of Gaveston’s in a small group of witnesses of a grant to the king by John FitzReginald.
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At the end of the month they set out again, this time for Wallingford.

The tournament held in honour of Gaveston by the king on 2 December 1307 was a turning point in the reign. For a start, Wallingford had previously been a royal residence and so the two hundred or so assembled knights all saw for themselves how splendid was the gift Edward had given his dear Perrot. But that was nothing besides the tournament itself. Gaveston, a renowned champion fighter, led the knights on one side, while those on the other were led by the Earls of Warenne, Hereford, and Arundel. To the fury of the earls, and to the delight of the king and Gaveston, the young talented knights on Gaveston’s side, with the benefit of their youth and strength, ran rings around the older earls’ men. The earls were unceremoniously defeated and humiliated. Earl Warenne bitterly turned against Gaveston from that moment, and never forgave him. His violent declaration against the king’s favourite only slightly exceeded the anger and frustration of the other two earls. This upstart had not only been raised above them, he could defeat them in battle too. Worst of all he publicly crowed over their fallen status, laughing at their humbling as they tumbled from their horses into the Berkshire mud. To the frustration of the earls, the king laughed also.

A tide of hatred against Gaveston swept across the country in the wake of the tournament, but those who had sided with the king and his beloved Perrot reaped their rewards. Among them were Roger and his uncle. The Justiciar of Ireland was ordered to restore all Roger’s lands there due to him, and letters of protection were drawn up for him to accompany the king to France for his marriage to Princess Isabella.
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Geoffrey de Geneville, Joan’s octogenarian grandfather, was given permission to pass to Roger and Joan all the lands and estates in Ireland which they stood to inherit on his death. At the same time it seems that Roger was proposed for the position of Seneschal of Gascony, which would have made him governor of the Duchy of Aquitaine.
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Shortly afterwards, Roger’s uncle was made Justiciar of Wales, with enormous powers across the principality. For some reason Roger did not take up his position in Gascony; perhaps on account of his youth the earls persuaded Edward that it was a premature appointment. But whatever the reason, it is clear that the Mortimers both stood high in the king’s favour as they accompanied him down the coast road to Dover in January 1308.
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